Sentencing for Two of Four in Baseball Prospect's Shooting Death

The first two members of a quartet charged with the drive-by shooting of Michael Nolan in 2015 have been sentenced to jail time, Acting Westchester County District Attorney James A. McCarty announced Wednesday.

Tejmitra Singh, 23, of the Bronx, New York, was sentenced to 11 years in state prison after having pled guilty to one count of Assault in the First Degree, a class “B” Violent Felony.

Darren Dawson, 19, of the Bronx, New York, was sentenced to nine years in state prison after having pled guilty to one count of Assault in the First Degree, a class “B” Violent Felony.

Nolan was standing outside his black Mercedes loaner car in the parking lot of a Yonkers Burger King Restaurant in September 2015 when a white Toyota Camry slowly rolled up alongside. Inside the vehicle were Singh and Dawson, along with co-defendants Nashaun Hunter and Garth O’Neil Cole, prosecutors said.

Suddenly, Hunter fired six shots from the back driver’s side window of the Camry one of which hit Nolan in the head. Nolan was brought to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx where he remained in a coma until he was declared dead on Oct.9, 2015.

Nolan, 23, had been a left-handed pitching prospect of the Oakland A’s.

An extensive investigation was carried out by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, the Yonkers Police Department and the Westchester County Intelligence Center. It revealed that the shooting was in retaliation for the beating of an individual known to the defendants and related to events that began during a drag race two nights before the shooting.

Detectives found .25 caliber shell casings at the scene. A .25 caliber bullet was recovered from the victim’s body. No gun was ever recovered.

The defendants were arrested on March 2, 2016.

Hunter previously pleaded guilty to one count of Manslaughter in the First Degree, a class “B” Violent Felony, and will be sentenced on Nov. 16.

O’Neil Cole, of Mount Vernon, previously pleaded guiltyto one count of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, a class “C” Violent Felony. He is due to be sentenced before the end of the year.

Photo: Michael Nolan. Photo credit: Oklahoma City University